Wednesday, May 24, 2006

William Donohue argues the media gets away with anti-Catholicism...

William Donohue, the president of the Catholic League, writes an editorial in the New York DailyNews about how easily people get away with blatant anti-Catholicism in the world today, especially in the media. This is an absurd double standard since no one can get away with being anti-Semitic, anti-black, anti-gay, or anti-anything else. Here's his conclusion:

To understand what's driving this, consider that our culture teaches that freedom means the right to do whatever we want to do and Catholicism teaches that freedom means the right to do what we ought to do. There's a natural disharmony here, a tension so taut that something's got to give. Never mind that a libertine idea of freedom — liberty as license — is spiritually, psychologically, physiologically and socially deadly in its consequences. It's what sells. Sadly, what is attendant to this perverse interpretation of liberty is a need to lash out at any creed that preaches the virtue of restraint.

The scandal in the Catholic Church did not help matters, but the frontal assault on Catholicism antedated the revelations of 2002. No matter, the kind of hate speech that spews with regularity toward the Catholic Church can never be justified. That it occurs amid all the chatter about tolerance and respect for diversity makes it all the more repugnant.